Following the frenetic pace of the Noosa Festival of Surfing, it’s been great this week to hang out at possibly the most leisurely-paced surf comp in Australia, if not the world.
But I’ll get to the 23rd running of the Agnes Water Longboard Classic in a minute. First, let’s deal with the much faster-paced Noosa attack at last weekend’s Queensland Surf Festival, held in challenging conditions at Coolum. This week-long Surfing Queensland event provides the official pathway to the national titles, as well as crowning Queensland Open champions.
And after some nail-biting moments for the spectators and mums and dads, two of Noosa’s hottest emerging champions took the titles – Lilliana Bowrey in the women’s and Ben Lorentson in the men’s. Both teenagers are products of the powerful Noosa Boardriders Club, as is Coco Cairns, who took out the state under 18 title a few weeks ago ahead of Lil. Last weekend it was Lil’s turn to finish ahead of Coco in second.
Both Ben and Lil have won entries into the WSL Gold Coast Pro Challenger Series trials at Snapper Rocks in May, with the opportunity to impress at the highest level of the sport.
Other Noosa standouts at Coolum were Sunshine Beach’s Tim Bain, who finished fourth in the Open Men, and evergreen former pro Dean Brady, who won the over 35 division. The last time Dean took out a Queensland title was in 2002 in the under 18s. My, how time flies.
Meanwhile, just up the road four-and-a-half hours at sleepy old Aggie, the Longboard Classic in typical fashion enjoyed the full range of conditions over its five days, from atrocious to fun. Not that the competitors really care. This event is totally old school charming, with a couple of tents on the beach, some clipboards and a hooter, and plenty of beers after the last heat of the day. Ya gotta love it. Surfing in the codgers’ event, I was pretty happy to get through a couple of rounds and surf a semi on the point, given that most of the heats were on the beach break, but I was even happier to just cruise along the beach taking in the laidback scene and remembering when every surf contest looked like this one.
We arrived at Agnes late morning Tuesday, just in time to see two of Noosa’s finest battle it out in the final of the women’s logger pro in clean point waves that would turn out to be the best of the entire event. Kirra Molnar and Jade Gower traded wave for wave with stylish turns and long nose-rides through the inside section, but with five minutes to go it looked like Kirra, who went so close to taking a title or two at the Noosa festival the week before, had the pro in the bag.
But never say never. Needing a big score with only a minute or so to go, Jade turned and swung onto the biggest wave of the heat, and rode it beautifully from point to beach. Effervescent Kirra, president of the Noosa World Surfing Reserve, had to be content with another second, but her day is coming.
The big contingent from Noosa Malibu Club – which would have been even bigger, had not several families succumbed to Covid on the last weekend of the Noosa festival – had a ball and notched up some impressive wins. Jayben Poy, the artistic young man who featured in these pages last week, took out the mixed junior division with some clean, stylish surfing. Mal Club president Glen Gower kept the family on the podium surfing down a division to take out the men’s over 40s, while Owen Cavanagh in the open 8s and Nahyung “Abbey” Lee in the women’s over 35s also impressed.
But the standout surfer of the event was one who no longer calls Noosa home. Born and bred here into a surfing family, Trent Dickey was a regular podium finisher in the juniors at the Noosa Festival of Surfing back in its early years, and 20 years later he’s lost none of his style or trademark polish. Trent surfed beautifully throughout, taking out the hat-trick of men’s logger pro, the amateur logger and open 9s.
Trent has been happily ensconced at Yeppoon for some time now, where he and partner Mandy are raising a young family, but he still gets home to Noosa often enough to be given honorary local status. Well, I’m giving it to him anyway, and adding his three trophies to the tidy pile for Noosa.
And a big shout out to Agnes comp director Paul White, who puts a lot of effort into making it look effortless. Just one suggestion: an over 70s division would be nice next year!
